Sapphire RX 570 Pulse ITX SFF GPU Review

1. Introduction2. Sapphire RX 570 Pulse ITX3. Testing Methodology4. 3DMark (1080p and 1440p)5. SteamVR Performance Test6. Unigine Heaven (1080p and 1440p)7. Ashes of the Singularity (1080p and 1440p)8. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (1080p and 1440p)9. Ghost Recon: Wildlands (1080p and 1440p)10. Grand Theft Auto V (1080p and 1440p)11. Rise of the Tomb Raider (1080p and 1440p)12. Noise13. Power Consumption14. Temperatures15. Overclocking16. Closing Thoughts17. View All Pages

Having analysed a few of the new AMD RX 500-series cards since launch, today our attention turns back to the RX 570. This particular card is Sapphire's RX 570 Pulse ITX model, and it is specifically aimed at those looking to build a SFF or ITX system – this is made clear by the card's small size and single-fan cooling solution. Is it an effective option for those with very strict space constraints?

We know by now that the RX 570 GPU is best for 1080p gaming, so the focus of this review today is whether or not the Sapphire RX 570 Pulse ITX is an effective implementation of the Polaris architecture. Given it is aimed at the SFF and Mini-ITX markets, its thermal and power consumption levels are of particular importance.

GPU	AMD RX 480	AMD RX 580	AMD RX 470	AMD RX 570	AMD R9 390	Nvidia GTX 1050 Ti	Nvidia GTX 1060
Streaming Multiprocessors / Compute Units	36	36	32	32	40	6	10
GPU Cores	2304	2304	2048	2048	2560	768	1280
Texture Units	144	144	128	128	160	48	80
ROPs	32	32	32	32	64	32	48
Base Clock	1120 MHz	1257 MHz	926 MHz	1168 MHz	Up to 1000MHz	1290 MHz	1506 MHz
GPU Boost Clock	1266 MHz	1340 MHz	1206 MHz	1244 MHz	Up to 1000MHz	1392 MHz	1708 MHz
Total Video memory	4096 or 8192 MB	4096 or 8192 MB	4096 or 8192 MB	4096 MB	8192 MB	4096 MB	6144 MB
Memory Clock (Effective)	1750 (7000) or 2000 (8000) MHz	2000 (8000) MHz	1650 (6600) MHz	1750 (7000) MHz	1500 (6000) MHz	1752 (7008) MHz	2002 (8008) MHz
Memory Bandwidth	224 or 256 GB/s	256 GB/s	211 GB/s	224 GB/s	384 GB/s	112 GB/s	192 GB/s
Bus Width	256-bit	256-bit	256-bit	256-bit	512-bit	128-bit	192-bit
Manufacturing Process	14nm	14nm	14nm	14nm	28nm	16nm	16nm
TDP	150 W	185 W	120 W	150 W	275 W	75W	120 W

It is definitely worth noting that the RX 570 Pulse ITX does not come with any sort of factory overclock – the card's 1244MHz boost clock is the same as AMD's reference figure. This will negatively impact performance compared to other, factory overclocked RX 570 cards such as the ASUS Strix RX 570 or Sapphire Pulse RX 570, but it will likely help keep core temperatures down.

As it is also a member of Sapphire's Pulse family, this ITX card lacks many features we would expect from a high-end card. For example, there is no backplate, RGB LEDs or dual-BIOS functionality. This is a SFF card designed simply to work in a constricted environment.

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